Rivan Codex Series

by Eddings, David

  True to Yarblek's prediction, the loosely stacked walls blocking the streets some way into the city fell easily to the dozens of grappling hooks that sailed up over their troops to bite into the other sides.

  The grim advance continued, and the air rang with the steely clang of sword against sword. Somehow, in all the confusion, Garion became separated from Barak and found himself fighting shoulder to shoulder beside Durnik in a narrow alleyway. The smith carried no sword or axe, but fought instead with a large, heavy club. "I just don't like chopping into people," he apologized, felling a burly opponent with one solid blow. "If you hit somebody with a club, there's a fair chance that he won't die, and there isn't all that blood."

  They pushed deeper into the city, driving the demoralized inhabitants before them. The sounds of heavy fighting at the southern end of town gave notice that Silk and his men had reached the south wall and opened the gates to admit the massed troops whose feigned attack had fatally divided the cult forces.

  And then Garion and Durnik burst out of the narrow alleyway into the broad, snowy central square of Rheon. Fighting raged all over the square; but on the east side, a thick knot of cultists was tightly packed about a high-wheeled cart. Atop the cart stood a black-bearded man in a rust-colored brocade doublet.

  A lean Nadrak with a slender spear in his hand arched back, took aim, and hurled his weapon directly at the man on the cart. The black-bearded man raised one hand in a peculiar gesture, and the Nadrak spear suddenly sheered off to the right to clatter harmlessly on the snow-slick cobblestones. Garion clearly heard and felt the rushing surge that could only mean one thing. "Durnik!" he shouted. "The man on the cart. That's Ulfgar!"

  Durnik's eyes narrowed. "Let's take him, Garion," he said.

  Garion's anger at this stranger who was the cause of all this warfare and carnage and destruction suddenly swelled intolerably, and his rage communicated itself to the Orb on the pommel of his sword. The Orb flared, and Iron-grip's burning sword suddenly flamed out in searing blue fire.

  "There! It's the Rivan King!" the black-bearded man on the cart screamed. "Kill him!"

  Momentarily Garion's eyes locked on the eyes of the man on the cart. There was hate there and, at the same time, an awe and a desperate fear. But, blindly obedient to their leader's command, a dozen cultists ran through the slush toward Garion with their swords aloft. Suddenly they began to tumble into twitching heaps in the sodden snow in the square as arrow after arrow laced into their ranks.

  "Ho, Garion!" Lelldorin shouted gleefully from a nearby housetop, his hands blurring as he loosed his arrows at the charging cultists.

  "Ho, Lelldorin!" Garion called his reply, even as he ran in amongst the fur-clad men, flailing about him with his burning sword. The attention of the group around the cart was riveted entirely on the horrifying spectacle of the enraged King of Riva and his fabled sword. They did not, therefore, see Durnik the smith moving in a catlike crouch along the wall of a nearby house.

  The man on the cart raised one hand aloft, seized a ball of pure fire, and hurled it desperately at Garion. Garion flicked the fireball aside with his flaming blade and continued his grim advance, swinging dreadful strokes at the desperate men garbed in bearskins in front of him without ever taking his eyes off of the pasty-faced man in the black beard. His expression growing panicky, Ulfgar raised his hand again, but suddenly seemed almost to lunge forward off the cart into the brown slush as Durnik's cudgel cracked sharply across the back of his head.

  There was a great cry of chagrin as the cult-leader fell. Several of his men tried desperately to lift his inert body, but Durnik's club, whistling and thudding solidly, felled them in their tracks. Others tried to form a wall with their bodies in an effort to keep Garion from reaching the body lying facedown in the snow, but Lelldorin's steady rain of arrows melted the center of that fur-clad wall. Garion, feeling strangely remote and unaffected by the slaughter, marched into the very midst of the disorganized survivors, swinging his huge sword in great, sweeping arcs. He barely felt the sickening shear as his sword cut through bone and flesh. After he had cut down a half a dozen or so, the rest broke and ran.

  "Is he still alive?" Garion panted at the smith.

  Durnik rolled the inert Ulfgar over and professionally peeled back one of his eyelids to have a look. "He's still with us," he said. "I hit him rather carefully."

  "Good," Garion said. "Let's tie him up -and blindfold him."

  "Why blindfold?"

  "We both saw him use sorcery, so we've answered that particular question, but I think it might be a little hard to do that sort of thing if you can't see what you're aiming at."

  Durnik though about it for a moment as he tied the unconscious man's hands. "You know, I believe you're right. It would be difficult, wouldn't it?"

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  With the fall of Ulfgar, the cult's will to resist broke. Though a few of the more rabid continued to fight, most threw down their weapons in surrender. Grimly, Garion's army rounded them up and herded them through the snowy, blood-stained streets into the town's central square.

  Silk and Javelin briefly questioned a sullen captive with a bloody bandage wrapped around his head, then joined Garion and Durnik, who stood watch over their still-unconscious prisoner. "Is that him?" Silk asked curiously, absently polishing one of his rings on the front of his gray doublet.

  Garion nodded.

  "He doesn't look all that impressive, does he?"

  "The large stone house over there is his," Javelin said, pointing at a square building with red tiles on its roof.

  "Not any more," Garion replied. "It's mine now."

  Javelin smiled briefly. "We'll want to search it rather thoroughly," he said. "People sometimes forget to destroy important things."

  "We might as well take Ulfgar in there, too," Garion said. "We need to question him, and that house is as good as any."

  "I'll go get the others," Durnik offered, pulling off his pot-shaped helmet. "Do you think it's safe enough to bring Pol and the other ladies into the city yet?"

  "It should be," Javelin replied. "What little resistance there is left is in the southeast quarter of the city."

  Durnik nodded and went on across the square, his mail shirt jingling.

  Garion, Silk, and Javelin picked up the limp form of the black-bearded man and carried him toward the stately house with the banner of a bear flying from a staff in front of it.

  As they started up the stairs, Garion glanced at a Rivan soldier standing guard over some demoralized prisoners huddled miserably in the slush. "Would you do me a favor?" he asked the gray-cloaked man.

  "Of course, your Majesty," the soldier said, saluting.

  " Chop that thing down." Garion indicated the flagstaff with a thrust of his jaw.

  "At once, your Majesty." The soldier grinned. "I should have thought of it myself."

  They carried Ulfgar into the house and through a polished door. The room beyond the door was luxuriously furnished, but the chairs were mostly overturned, and there were sheets of parchment everywhere. A crumpled heap of them had been stuffed into a large stone fireplace built into the back wall, but the fireplace was cold.

  "Good," Javelin muttered. "He was interrupted before he could burn anything."

  Silk looked around at the room. Rich, dark-colored tapestries hung on the walls, and the green carpeting was thick and soft. The chairs were all upholstered in scarlet velvet, and unlighted candles stood in silver sconces along the wall.

  "He managed to live fairly well, didn't he?" the little man murmured as they unceremoniously dumped the prisoner in the rust-colored doublet in one corner.

  "Let's gather up these documents," Javelin said. "I want to go over them."

  Garion unstrapped his sword, dropped his helmet on the floor and shrugged himself out of his heavy mailshirt. Then he sank wearily onto a soft couch. "I'm absolutely exhausted," he said. "I feel as if I haven't slept for a week."

  Silk shrugged. "One of the
privileges of command."

  The door opened, and Belgarath came into the room. "Durnik said I could find you here," he said, pushing back the hood of his shabby old cloak. He crossed the room and nudged the limp form in the corner. "He isn't dead, is he?"

  "No," Garion replied. "Durnik put him to sleep with a club is all."

  "Why the blindfold?" the old man asked, indicating the strip of blue cloth tied across the captive's face.

  "He was using sorcery before we captured him. I thought it might not be a bad idea to cover his eyes."

  "That depends on how good he is. Durnik sent soldiers out to round up the others and then he went over to the encampment to get Pol and the other ladies."

  "Can you wake him up?" Silk asked.

  "Let's have Pol do it. Her touch is a little lighter than mine, and I don't want to break anything accidentally."

  It was perhaps three-quarters of an hour later when they all finally gathered in the green-carpeted room. Belgarath looked around, then straddled a straight-backed chair in front of the captive. "All right, Pol," he said bleakly. "Wake him up."

  Polgara unfastened her blue cloak, knelt beside the prisoner and put one hand on each side of his head. Garion heard a whispered rushing sound and felt a gentle surge. Ulfgar groaned.

  "Give him a few minutes," she said, rising to her feet. "Then you can start questioning him."

  "He's probably going to be stubborn about it," Brin predicted with a broad grin.

  "I'll be terribly disappointed in him if he isn't," Silk said as he rifled through a drawer in a large, polished cabinet.

  "Have you barbarians blinded me?" Ulfgar said in a weak voice as he struggled into a sitting position.

  "No," Polgara told him. "Your eyes are covered to keep you out of mischief."

  "Are my captors women, then?" There was contempt in the black-bearded man's voice.

  "This one of them is," Ce'Nedra said, pushing her dark green cloak slightly to one side. It was the note in her voice that warned Garion and saved the prisoner's life. With blazing eyes, she snatched one of the daggers from Vella's belt and flew at the blindfolded man with the gleaming blade held aloft. At the last instant, Garion caught her upraised arm and wrested the knife from her grasp.

  "Give me that!" she cried.

  "No, Ce'Nedra."

  "He stole my baby!" she screamed. "I'll kill him!"

  "No, you won't. We can't get any answers out of him if you cut his throat."

  With one arm still about her, he handed the dagger back to Vella.

  "We have a few questions for you, Ulfgar," Belgarath said to the captive.

  "You're going to have to wait a long time for the answers."

  "I'm so glad he said that," Hettar murmured. "Who wants to start cutting on him?"

  "Do whatever you wish," Ulfgar sneered. "My body is of no concern to me."

  "We'll do everything we can to change your mind about that," Vella said in a chillingly sweet voice as she tested the edge of her dagger with her thumb.

  "Just what was it you wanted to know, Belgarath?" Errand asked, turning from his curious examination of a bronze statue standing in the corner. "I can give you the answers, if you want."

  Belgarath looked at the blond boy sharply . "Do you know what's in his mind?" he asked, startled.

  "More or less, yes."

  "Where's my son?" Garion asked quickly.

  "That's one thing he doesn't know," Errand replied. "He had nothing to do with the abduction."

  "Who did it then?"

  "He's not sure, but he thinks it was Zandramas."

  "Zandramas?"

  "That name keeps cropping up, doesn't it?" Silk said.

  "Does he know who Zandramas is?"

  "Not really. It's just a name he's heard from his Master."

  "Who is his Master?"

  "He's afraid to even think the name," Errand said. "It's a man with a splotchy face, though."

  The prisoner was struggling desperately, trying to free himself from the ropes which bound him. "Lies!" he screamed. "All lies!"

  "This man was sent here by his Master to make sure that you and Ce'Nedra didn't have any children," Errand continued ignoring the screaming captive, "or to see to it that, if you did, the children didn't live. He couldn't have been behind the abduction, Belgarion. If he had been the one who crept into the nursery at Riva, he would have killed your son, not taken him away."

  "Where does he come from?" Liselle asked curiously as she removed her scarlet cloak. "I can't quite place his accent."

  "That's probably because he's not really a man," Errand told her. " At least not entirely. He remembers being an animal of some sort."

  They all stared at the boy and then at Ulfgar.

  At that point the door opened again, and the hunchbacked Beldin came into the room. He was about to say something, but stopped, staring at the bound and blindfolded prisoner. He stumped across the floor, bent, and ripped the blue cloth away from the man's eyes to stare into his face. "Well, dog", he said. "What brings you out of your kennel?"

  "You!" Ulfgar gasped, his face growing suddenly pale.

  "Urvon will have your heart for breakfast when he finds out how badly you've botched things," Beldin said pleasantly.

  "Do you know this man?" Garion asked sharply.

  "He and I have known each other for a long, long time, haven't we, Harakan?"

  The prisoner spat at him.

  "I see you will need a little bit of housebreaking." Beldin grinned.

  "Who is he?" Garion demanded.

  "His name is Harakan. He's a Mallorean Grolim -one of Urvon's dogs. The last time I saw him, he was whining and fawning all over Urvon's feet."

  Then, quite suddenly, the captive vanished.

  Beldin unleashed a string of foul curses. Then he, too flickered out of sight.

  "What happened?" Ce'Nedra gasped. "Where did they go?"

  "Maybe Beldin isn't as smart as I thought," Belgarath said. "He should have left that blindfold alone. Our prisoner translocated himself outside the building."

  "Can you do that?" Garion asked incredulously. "Without being able to see what you're doing, I mean?"

  "It's very, very dangerous, but Harakan seems to have been desperate. Beldin's following him."

  "He'll catch him, won't he?"

  "It's hard to say."

  "I still have questions that have to be answered."

  I can answer them for you, Belgarion," Errand told him quite calmly.

  "You mean that you still know what's in his mind -even though he's not here any more?"

  Errand nodded.

  "Why don't you start at the beginning, Errand?" Polgara suggested.

  "All right. This Harakan, I guess his real name is, came here because his Master, the one Beldin called Urvon, sent him here to make sure that Belgarion and Ce'Nedra never had any children. Harakan came here and gained control of the Bear-cult. At first he stirred up all kinds of talk against Ce'Nedra, hoping that he could force Belgarion to set her aside and marry someone else. Then, when he heard that she was going to have a baby, he sent someone to try to kill her. That didn't work, of course, and he started to get desperate. He was terribly afraid of what Urvon would do to him if he failed. He tried to gain control of Ce'Nedra when she was asleep once, to make her smother the baby, but someone -he doesn't know who- stepped in and stopped him."

  "It was Poledra," Garion murmured. "I was there that night."

  "Is that when he came up with the idea of murdering Brand and laying the blame at King Anheg's door?" General Brendig asked.

  Errand frowned slightly. "Killing Brand was an accident," he replied. "As closely as Harakan could work it out, Brand just happened along and caught the cultists in that hallway when they were about to do what he really sent them to Riva to do."

  " And what was that?" Ce'Nedra asked him.

  "They were on their way to the royal apartments to kill you and your baby."

  Her face paled.

  "A
nd then they were supposed to kill themselves. That was what was supposed to start the war between Belgarion and King Anheg. Anyway, something went wrong. Brand got killed instead of you and your baby, and we found out that the cult was responsible instead of Anheg. He didn't dare go back to Urvon and admit that he had failed. Then Zandramas took your baby and got away from the Isle of the Winds with him. Harakan couldn't follow because Belgarion was already marching on Rheon by the time he found out about it. He was trapped here, and Zandramas was getting away with your baby."

  "That Nyissan ship!" Kail exclaimed. "Zandramas stole your son, Belgarion, and then sailed off to the south and left us all floundering around here in Drasnia."

  "What about the story we got from that Cherek cultist right after the abduction?" Brin asked.

  "A Bear-cultist isn't usually very bright," Kail replied. "I don't think this Zandramas would have had too much difficulty in persuading those Chereks that the abduction was on Harakan's orders, and all that gibberish about the prince being raised in the cult so that one day he could claim the Rivan throne is just kind of brainsick nonsense men like that would believe."

  "That's why they were left behind, then," Garion said. "We were supposed to capture at least one of them and get the carefully prepared story that sent us off here to Rheon, while Zandramas sailed away to the south with my son."

  "It looks as if we've all been very carefully manipulated," Javelin said, sorting through some parchment sheets he had stacked on a polished table. "Harakan as well as the rest of us. "

  "We can be clever, too," Belgarath said. "I don't think Zandramas realizes that the Orb will follow Geran's trail. If we move fast enough, we can sneak up from behind and take this clever manipulator by surprise."

  "It won't work across water." the dry voice in Garion's mind said laconically.

  "What?"

  "The Orb can't follow your son's trail over water. The ground stays in one place. Water keeps moving around -wind, tides, that sort of thing."

  Are you sure?"

  But the voice was gone.

  "There's a problem, Grandfather," Garion said. "The Orb can't find a trail on water."